Akemi
by OTRamble
Summary: Akemi has travelled the world her whole life with one sole companion her father Haate. When she finally gets to return to her birthplace, Konoha, unexpected events may turn her life around... My own character in the world of Naruto.
1. Konoha

"…Then, poor me, found myself at the centre of a group of terribly drunken thugs, cursing threats fit for the devil! I could have sworn my life flashed quickly before me, as the peril was dawning so very rapidly…! But then – a miracle came from the dark deep forest behind me! At first all anyone could glimpse was a white flash but then SHE landed by my side, at the same time slamming a few of those thugs nearest unconscious. After a hasty – but wonderful - reassuring smile from this miraculous white-clad redhead, she quickly and with hardly any effort made all thugs slip into oblivion with some advanced taijutsu, and helped grateful little me arrive safely back to my dearest little cottage!" Damon finished describing the evening's previous events, adding his own dramatic flare to every single detail as usual.

The white-clad redheaded miracle in question was sitting by the blazing fire outside Damon's shabby little cottage and had turned nearly as bright red as her hair when Damon had just started to mention her.

"My point is, my dearest Akemi. Is that I am in debt for your amazing performance," Damon said looking admiring at Akemi from across the fire. He then turned to the man next to him. "And, Haate! I know we have hardly any contact because of your constant travelling – which I still think is totally insane – but we have some, especially as you are staying under my roof for some days now. So I am very shocked that you haven't even mentioned how powerful your daughter has grown!"

Haate smiled and replied simply to Damon, "I wanted to surprise you with an impressive example." Haate winked at Akemi. Akemi smiled back.

That evening Haate had gone to attend to something, leaving Akemi with one order – look out for Damon. Damon was an older man that always found himself in trouble, especially when doing his daily visit to the local bar. Damon lived in the outskirts of the small village with his demanding wife. Long ago Haate had befriended the vivid elder after helping him out in one of Damon's frequent tricky situations. As a repayment, always when Haate passed by the village when going from one land to another, Damon gave him shelter.

Akemi's and Haate's own home was out on the numerous roads existing in this world. Father and daughter only had had a stationary home when Akemi had been very little. That had been in Konoha, and now they were returning after not even one visit since their first departure from their original home town.

"I think we should retire in order to gather our strength for tomorrow's travels," Haate suddenly announced. Akemi stood up and made way with her father to their current sleeping quarters, both ignoring Damon's protests.

As Akemi suspected, she couldn't sleep. Curiosity was building great excitement in her for tomorrows return to Konoha. Not even something dead could sleep with that boiling inside of them.

Akemi felt her heart quicken at the sight of the grand entrance of the famous Konoha. As usual when entering towns, Haate and Akemi drifted through the entrance with ease, but Akemi noted that when the two had passed, the guard quickly dashed away. Akemi pushed that aside by fixing the position of her straw hat. Besides Akemi's attention was now drawn to the everyday life of the village.

When they entered the main street to look for accommodation of some sort, Haate whispered, "Keep alert."

Akemi immediately straightened out. Confusion invaded her thoughts. Always when Haate whispered those two words he suspected trouble, but how could trouble emerge in this crowded and pleasant village?

After a while of walking through the busy market full of pleasant shouts and screams Akemi felt a presence following her. She trudged on harder now. The presence followed. Akemi sensed it being alarmingly near her. Just when panic started to cloud her mind, Haate swooped Akemi into a small inn.

"Good day!" greeted the receptionist cheerily to them when they entered. Not Haate or Akemi answered.

A creak penetrated the weird silence created, along with the stalking presence from outside. Panic clouded Akemi's mind, blinding her sense from her next action: as quick as a flash Akemi spun round, her leg swung up for action, hitting the presence's hip with such force it fell to the floor.

Akemi looked down suspiciously at the stalker. It was a man dressed in a green jumpsuit accompanied with a traditional ninja vest.

Haate gave a short glance of disappointment at Akemi before questioned the green clad man, "What do you want?"

The guy jumped up onto his feet and was just about to answer when three other shinobi came in.

A black haired smoking shinobi in the group started to speak, "Could you two please remove your hats." Haate simply took off the straw hat, making Akemi follow his lead.

"What is your name?" the green dressed guy that had been knocked to the floor asked suddenly after the group of shinobis had studied Akemi's and Haate's face features.

Haate raised an eyebrow with a frown on his face. "I'm Haate and this is my daughter Akemi," Haate replied dryly. A silence followed.

"Both of you are shinobi, right? It seems like both of you are covering up your forehead protectors with your hair. Reveal them if you please," the woman ninja with messy black hair and red eyes ordered. Akemi froze when hearing this order. Could she really consider herself as a shinobi? She could do techniques of all sorts, and had a forehead protector with a leaf symbol that she had earned from Konoha's academy long ago…but Haate and Akemi had left the village before they could even sort her into a genin team.

Haate reluctantly dragged up his blonde fringe to reveal the leaf symbol. Again Akemi complied. Shock seemed to stir among the four present ninjas as they saw the same symbol as they too wore.

"I'm sorry for your time. We mistook you two for someone else with those hats," replied the green dressed ninja.

Haate frowned harder. "With this treatment you probably considered us as criminals." Akemi noted with astonishment that her father was getting angry. "The sneaking around tells me you thought of us as dangerous. All of this because of straw hats tells me you are fools. Straw hats belong to the uniform of Akatsuki. Akatsuki members also have black cloaks, do you not recall?! We are wearing no black cloaks, you fools!"

The four ninja's mouths dropped open. The shinobi with silver hair and a mask covering most of his face then spoke for the first time. "How do you know about Akatsuki?"

"On our travels we bumped into two members," Haate explained with a faint tone of anger in his voice. Akemi quickly thought through what Haate had said and soon enough a picture of two black cloaked men appeared in her mind. That day had been the worst in her life. The two men were extremely bloodthirsty when they had battled with Haate and Akemi. The worst part was that Akemi and Haate were bullied into it, with no other resort… Akemi and Haate had just managed to escape from a brutal death. The memories still gave Akemi goose bumps.

"Who?" asked the green dressed guy.

"Deidara and Tobi," Haate replied hastily. An awkward silence followed.

"Excuse us for our mistake," the woman shinobi suddenly said, and the rest of the ninjas retreated with her outside. Haate and Akemi turned around to see the receptionist peering out from behind the desk looking petrified. Haate went up to the desk and rang the bell making the receptionist shake of fear even more.

"We would like to have a room for two for some days," Haate said casually to the frightened receptionist.

As usual Haate left Akemi alone for the day to attend to some things. As usual Akemi didn't know what it he attend to, but didn't mind. She could now explore the city in peace.

For the whole morning Akemi had just wandered aimlessly around Konoha. The village had enchanted her with a powerful spell, making her forget about her groaning stomach for quite a while. When realising she jumped into the nearest ramen stall. Just when her order had been placed courteously in front of her, two more guests came into the stall. Akemi regarded the two, and her eyes widened in surprise. It was a loud blonde genin in orange that had entered along with the silver haired shinobi that Akemi had met that same morning.

The silver haired shinobi sat next to Akemi, and smiled at her. "I'm Hatake Kakashi. I'm sorry about the inconvinence of the mistake my friend Gai made," Kakashi offered his hand, Akemi ignored it.

"Gai? The green jumpsuit guy?" Akemi asked skeptically. "You must be very confident with yourself to admit you are friends with him. He was very easy to knock down." Akemi turned to regard Kakashi, noting the blonde genin next to him waiting impatiently for his meal. Akemi smiled to herself. People here were very open it seemed.

"I wanted to ask you some questions if that's ok?" Kakashi continued oblivious to Akemi's interuption. "First of all, if you're a leaf shinobi how come I've never heard of you do any missions?"

Akemi froze. The worst question of all time had to come up when her quick minded father was not present. Akemi tried to act it cool by starting on her meal.

"We travel a lot," Akemi replied simply. She felt Kakashi's hard eyes on her.

"Hmm…," Kakashi murmured. "That taijutsu that you used against Gai seemed very advanced. According to the records we have here you are only a genin…"

Akemi's short temper started to boil. That fact bothered her every day, too much for her liking, and now when someone had pointed it out, it bothered her even more.

Haate had pushed Akemi hard to become a strong shinobi during their constant travels, but because of their withdrawral from Konoha, Akemi remained a genin. Haate had even forced her to always wear whiteto become powerful. When she had asked why, he had replied that she could test her capability of fighting when dressed in white.

"If you fight in white but still don't get your clothing dirty, you know you are a good ninja," Haate had explained. At first Akemi had tried to wriggle out of Haate's weird testing way, because of the great contrast between Akemi's natural bright red hair and the white clothing. Though Akemi had learned to love to walk around in constant pure white clothing, no matter the scenario.

"We travel a lot," Akemi repeated to Kakashi. Seeing his disbelieving look, Akemi added, "I don't have time to bother with titles."

"Really? Then why did you bother becoming a shinobi in the first place?" The irony of Kakashi's words coming out of such an innocent looking smile on his face was overwhelming. "I'd like to test you if that is ok? It would be as interesting for you as it would be for me… After all you graduated from Konoha's academy with top grades at only seven years old…"

"You did?!" exclaimed the blonde genin next to Kakashi. "Wow! You must be very strong! How old are you?"

Akemi eyed out the genin suspiciously. Kakashi smiled wider, then exclaiming, "How rude of me to forget to introduce you to my student Naruto!"

Akemi glanced at Naruto before replying to him, "I'm seventeen." Akemi quickly finished her bowl of ramen and stood up. "I'm afraid, Kakashi, I don't have the time for you to test me, but thank you for the offer. Naruto, Kakashi, nice to meet you." With that Akemi left the ramen stall with a deep sigh, but eyes full of curiosity…


	2. The Welcome

Akemi took a long deep breath, and then released it. She was sitting quite deep in the forest bordering Konoha. She had found a small opening where there was a tree stump perfectly at the center, there Akemi found herself sitting on the stump, concentrating hard on her breathing. She wanted to complete her new technique – Hawk Eyes genjutsu. So far she had only been able to get one eye to work, but she strived to get the other one going too.  
Akemi closed her eyes and dived into her thoughts, tracing her chakra network in her body with her feelings. She searched for a specific type of chakra frantically. She was searching for the Hawk's chakra stored somewhere… A nerve twitched in her left eye, followed by a short tingling sensation. Akemi opened her eyes and snatched the small mirror lying next to her. She glanced at her reflection and saw that her normally dark blue, almost black left eye had turned into a golden yellow shade. She then noted sadly that her right remained dark.  
Once again Akemi shut her eyes and plunged into the thoughts of Hawk chakra, determined to convert her right eye gold as well.  
A loud howl pierced Akemi's concentration. The sensation of a shadow growing on her was emitted. Before Akemi had time to open her eyes, something crashed into her, throwing her backwards, off the tree stump and onto the hard earth.  
By now her eyes were wide open, staring into a young pair of eyes. She realized their position: she was lying defenseless under the young mans body, both clearly surprised by the turn of events. Anger grew rapidly in Akemi. This, this – pervert– had disrupted her training just at the point when she was advancing greatly! How dare he!  
"What the hell are you doing?! Get off me this second, or I'll brutally force you off!" Akemi spat at the young man with a face of anger and disgust.  
"I'm really sorry - I didn't mean to – I didn't see you, I, I…" the boy stammered as he scrambled off Akemi. She sat up and saw an enormous dog walking to the young man's side, with a smug expression. Akemi glared at the two of them, and saw that the young man was staring curiously at her left eye. Feeling self-conscious Akemi remembered that she still had her eye golden. Turning away from the giant dog and its obvious owner, she released her eye from that abnormal state. She received another wide-eyed stare when she looked back at the young man.  
"What did you just do?" He asked.  
"None of your business, you pervert!" Akemi huffed.  
"Hey! I said I was sorry! You were in my way!" he protested back.  
"So it was my fault?!" Akemi exclaimed as she jumped to her feet, as did the boy. "I was innocently concentrating on my training when you whacked me to the floor, harassing me on the way!"  
"I was not-! Don't you dare insult me again, you hear, you filthy liar!"  
" What did you call me?!" Akemi had approached the boy with firm steps and was now only a few inches away from him. "If YOU dare insult me again I will personally peck your eyes out and shred off your skin – along with your dog!" The boy gulped.  
"I'm sorry for before and the insulting," he murmured frightfully. After a short pause of only hearing the boys heavy breathing Akemi smiled contently and backed away, sitting down at the stump once again, back turned to the boy.  
"You were training?" The boy pressed on, making Akemi sigh in frustration.  
"Yes, I WAS."  
"So you're a shinobi?"  
"Yes."  
"You're not from around here, are you?" Akemi heard the boy approach her. When Akemi had seen his frightened expression before she was convinced he would scamper away immediately. Obviously she was wrong.  
"Technically I am," Akemi started, immediately regretting her words. "Don't you have to go to school or something?"  
"School?!" the boy exclaimed. "I'm a chuunin for Christ sake!" He had gone around the stump and now stood in front of Akemi looking appalled.  
"Chuunin, eh?" Akemi felt a pang of jealousy come like a reflex, but tried her best to shove it away. A fake smirk plastered across her face to hide her feelings as she looked into the boys eyes. "What's your name, oh mighty chuunin?"  
"Inuzuka Kiba," Kiba grunted crossing his arms.  
"Well, Kiba, don't you have something much more interesting to do than annoying me?" Akemi said as she rose from the stump and started to walk away.  
"Nope," Kiba replied bluntly. Akemi shivered of rage, but continued to walk on confidently.  
After five minutes of silent walking, Kiba following Akemi like a dog, along with his dog, he suddenly asked, "So what were you training?"  
"Something for me to know, and you to not find out," Akemi hissed. She scanned casually the forest ground when she spotted a dead bird almost hidden in a bush. "Yes," Akemi murmured as she dragged the bird out of its hiding place. It was a blackbird to Akemi's delight. She kneeled over the corpse of the blackbird and placed her hands over the bird. Her blue chakra circled her hands when summoned, and started to burn the dead bird.   
"What the hell are you doing?"  
"Cremating," Akemi answered Kiba simply.  
"Cremating? With chakra? You better explain yourself better."  
Akemi sighed. He wouldn't stop bugging her if she didn't explain anyway. "Well, my ninja techniques have all something to do with birds. I found out long ago that if I cremate a corpse of a bird I will gain its, "chakra" you can call it, even though it's different from ours. By doing that my techniques have a more realistic outcome plus I get more chakra. You could call it chakra absorption."  
"Realistic?" Kiba questioned obviously puzzled.  
"Yes, realistic. Ok, what I was training in the forest is a new technique which I call Hawk Eyes. Basically it's a genjutsu that turns my eyes yellow like a hawk. If I have absorbed chakra of more Hawk's it's easier to do the technique. It's like I consult with the chakra when I do the technique. Got it?"  
Kiba looked amazed when the last of the bird vanished into Akemi's hands. "By the way, if you tell any one about this, I'll kill you," she couldn't help but add on.  
"I'm guessing your "Hawk Eyes" aren't complete, as you only had one eye yellow," Kiba suggested slowly as he continued to follow close on Akemi's heel.  
"Correct."  
"How many Hawks have you absorbed?"  
"About two. They are very rare," Akemi casually gave away. At last they had come back to the village. "So, thank you for your annoying company, and good bye," Akemi gave a forced smile at Kiba and left him watching her walk away. Just when she thought he had given up, she heard Kiba running after her. When she turned the corner she was eye to eye with Kakashi.  
"Great, I'm ambushed…!" Akemi grimaced.  
"Sorry to scare you there," Kakashi smiled. "I just wanted to know if you've considered my offer?"  
"I didn't have to: No," Akemi said. "By the way, how do you loose the dog guy?"  
"Don't talk about me as if I'm not there!" Kiba stormed into the conversation.  
"Well go away and you won't hear me talking at all," Akemi hissed.   
"Hey, you guys. Calm down," Kakashi interrupted waving his hands around. "Akemi-san, why don't you want me to test you?"  
"Look what you've done! Now you told Mr. Stalker here my name!" Akemi yelled at Kakashi. "Plus I don't have time for your little games. That goes for you too, Kiba."  
"Err – Kakashi-sensei if you don't mind me asking, what are you talking about?" Kiba asked Kakashi innocently.  
"I offered to test Akemi-san here, to see how strong she was. She's a Konoha genin but I believe she has greater abilities. Akemi-san doesn't want to be tested though…," Kakashi explained with a sad tone.  
"She's only a genin? My god, I can't believe I looked up to her for a second or two…," Kiba sighed. Akemi was furious. She might as well have steam flowing out of her flaring nostrils!  
"Don't you dare judge me! I could easily slice you up and feed you to pigeons if I wanted to!" Akemi spat, now clutching the neck of Kiba's leather jacket.  
"Prove it then," Kakashi said cheerily. Akemi stared at him and Kiba for some seconds. She gulped her words, until she was able to speak.  
"Fine, I'll show you," Akemi let go of Kiba and turned away. "But I won't be responsible for my actions."  
She walked away, the rage starting to die down. What had she gotten herself into? Haate would not like this… IF he found out…

That evening Akemi got a message from the receptionist of the inn where Akemi and Haate was staying in. Thank God Haate wasn't with her as it was a message from Kakashi.  
The receptionist relayed that he expected Akemi at daybreak in the first opening of the forest to directly to the east of the high street. He had also added that Kiba said "Good luck - you'll need it". How come Kiba was able to pull the right strings to receive a negatively emotional response from Akemi?

The vague description from Kakashi had made Akemi get lost three times. She had to summon a sparrow to find the site, but she still doubted if it was the right place. She had come quarter of an hour late but there was no one there anyway, making her doubt. But after quarter of an hour waiting, Kakashi turned up.  
"I'm sorry I'm late," Kakashi put on his usual cheery smile.  
"Uh - it doesn't matter…," Akemi smiled back. This way she didn't have to admit she too was late. "Shall we finish this quickly?"  
"Well, if you can," Kakashi replied mysteriously, giving Akemi goose bumps. "Basically what you need to do is get this bell from me which I have on me. You have until midnight."  
"Seems easy enough," Akemi smirked.  
"Whenever you're ready," Kakashi said as he pulled up his forehead protector from his left eye, revealing a sharingan eye.


	3. The Test

"Sharingan, eh?" Akemi murmured thoughtfully to herself. She had never seen the eyes before, but after bumping into the Akatsuki members, Haate had given a list of the members he had heard about. One was the murderous Uchiha. Haate had explained the Uchiha's bloodline limit with such details Akemi was 100 certain this was what she saw in Kakashi's left eye.

Kakashi's eyes stared at her emotionless, making Akemi awfully uncomfortable. Her objective suddenly reached her mind, and she understood she had to do something. When Kakashi swiftly, with no effort, dodged the needles Akemi threw at him, without breaking eye-contact, she realized she had underestimated this test.

She had to go to her advantage, in other words be above the ground. Akemi suddenly sprinted right towards Kakashi, who shifted slightly to get prepared for the rapidly approaching attack. He was highly surprised when only two meters away Akemi swung to the left and disappeared into the thick forest. It didn't take long until Akemi swooshed out from the top of the trees and sprayed Kakashi with needles.

Akemi managed the needles so that every handful was thrown in different velocities. She was testing Kakashi, trying to remember the words Haate had recited about the Uchiha's bloodline limit's weakness. Still in the air, Akemi held two needles in her hands now. She took one and effectively welded some chakra into it. It left Akemi's hand with such speed that it managed to graze Kakashi's arm as he dodged the shower of the other needles. Success! Haate's words came back to her now.

"If we ever meet with the Akatsuki again… the Uchiha has a weakness for taijutsu and speed… But don't worry, I'll make sure we won't have any more meetings…," Haate's voice echoed in Akemi's head.

Without further ado, Akemi wrapped an explosion note around the last needle and threw it sequentially the chakra filled one. Just when she landed on the ground the explosion took place, but far enough to not effect her. Akemi smiled to herself.

"That should have done the trick," she mused. When the smoke started to fade away, Akemi's bird instincts began to kick in. There was a trembling in the ground, something was wrong…

Akemi just missed Kakashi's hands that emerged from the ground when she jumped away, but he managed to slightly grip her right leg, tripping her. Akemi growled, as she quickly got up and ran to get a distance between herself and Kakashi.

"Nice reflexes," Kakashi said simply. "They seem a bit special."

"They are from sparrows," Akemi replied darkly. "Your sharingan seems special too." Akemi bent down and slowly brushed off the dirt from her white clothing, remaining eye-contact with Kakashi.

"You appear to have dirtied my clothes," Akemi said, not able to hide her irritation in her voice. "That means war you know."

"I thought it already was," Kakashi smiled back coolly, just as he revealed an attack of shurikens to Akemi. Akemi just dodged them, but received a nice cut across her cheek. Oh yes, this was war…!

Akemi was unable to stop herself from sinking heavily onto the tree branch, wincing when her rear hit the hard wood. She soon would have reached her limit, but she still didn't have the bell. She was out of ideas.

She had summoned a pack of birds of all sizes that had attacked Kakashi quite violently, but apparently Kakashi could summon animals as well. Well, dogs to be precise. The dogs had forced the birds away (they left Akemi cursing every swearword a bird knew at her) and sniffed out Akemi to give some bad bites - one particularly nasty her bottom.

Before that she had tried her "feather blast" technique. It seemed to Akemi that Kakashi had the ability to transport himself to the most unusual places in a blink of an eye, because when the fast, flying feathers burst into flames at the place Kakashi was supposed to have been, Akemi had felt something cold by her neck.

Kakashi had somehow been able to come behind her, and took the advantage to whisper slyly into her ear, "My, my, what pretty explosions…"

Pure panic had filled her mind, immobilizing her strategic thoughts to be accessed. Instead Akemi had acted out the most non-ninja move ever - she had kicked him in the groin.

As Kakashi doubled over, pain even showing through his sharingan eye, Akemi had taken the chance to flee to a place further away. She was now mortified of her reflexes, especially as this test was obviously for her to show her techniques. Oh God…

Now here she was, panting, unable to formulate a plan. The sun was setting, telling her that a whole day had gone by with battling through this hard test - and it still wasn't over! She had to get that bell! NO matter what!

It suddenly clicked in her mind. Akemi glanced at the tree Kakashi was hiding behind, and decided it had to be done, even though it would be very hard to succeed... Akemi stealthily got to a place where Kakashi was in full view, and she took out a scroll. She got some blood from her cheek onto her thumb to summon her great archery set.

Akemi had gotten her bow in the Bird Country, one of her favourite countries. The bow was painted gold, but revealed the majestic pattern of the wood underneath. Engraved on it was the words "Golden Flight", and so Akemi had named the bow that. Its arrows had all been customized to have colourful pheasant feathers on the end, and the point was also painted gold like the bow. Akemi loved the bow, and now was the time and place to use her beloved weapon.

Akemi calculated that she had would have to have extreme speed to carry her plan out. 30 seconds to be precise. Akemi got her archery equipment ready and then formed a long sequence of hand seals. She ended the seals by touching her lips with both her index fingers. The beautiful song of the blackbird was produced by Akemi, and she saw how immediately Kakashi was caught off guard and started to sway. When she would stop the "blackbird song" technique, she would only have 30 seconds until its effects would be gone completely…

Kakashi felt exhausted even before the enchanting song played, but when he heard it his eye-lids began to drop and he felt relaxed as the world around him started to darken... The song told him to relax, told him to sleep… it was like paradise. He hardly noticed the sting of various sharp points grazing his skin, but more importantly pinning him to the tree he was hiding behind. When that happened he noticed that the song had started to fade away, and he started to come back more to reality. The darkness that had surrounded him was being blown away by some sort of breeze, slowly breaking away. A pure white flapping object flew silently away from him… a bird of some sort… a dove… and it was holding something in its beak that chimed…

Now in total consciousness, Kakashi realized that the dove gave something to a redheaded woman that had just landed from above. Akemi smiled at him as she rang the newly achieved bell. Without a warning, Akemi suddenly swayed and fell face first onto the ground. Kakashi then realized that he was attached to a tree.

Akemi woke up with a pounding head and confusion of her location. She looked around carefully, noticing the jerking movement of someone carrying her. Akemi winced as the jerking activated her bottom's pain.

"Good you're up," said Kakashi, obviously struggling with holding her up. "Think you can walk?" Akemi nodded as a reply and Kakashi carefully put her down, but kept on supporting her.

"What happened?" Akemi said though ended up as a murmur.

"You had used up too much chakra so fainted. Since you had pinned me up to a tree, it took some time until I could go and check if you were alive," Kakashi explained thoroughly. Akemi saw the punctures in his clothes and smiled to herself, but then the grin faded when she realized that not only was Kakashi giving her support for walking, but she was doing the same for him.

"You didn't have to carry me. Especially if you were hurt," Akemi told Kakashi.

"Oh, it's nothing," Kakashi gave an immediate response. "By the way, sorry about your clothes."

"My clothes?" Akemi questioned. Sure they were dirty but… Akemi then noticed the feeling of a breeze on her bottom. She had a big hole in her shorts directly on her butt, great! Thank goodness the moon helped Akemi hide her new red shade on her face. "Well, technically, it was your dogs… Oh god, I'm going to have hell to pay next time I summon my birds…!" Akemi groaned as she remembered the not-so-happy birds she summoned. Kakashi laughed.

"Well at least we are both alive, right?" Kakashi smiled. "By the way, I should think you are at Jounin level…"

"I'm what?!" Akemi exclaimed. "Like – your level?!"

"Yes," Kakashi replied casually. "Pretty impressive, I have to agree."

"Wow," Akemi murmured as the duo continued to limp through Konoha at midnight. It took ages until they reached Akemi's inn, but they did somehow.

"Well, I have to admit, I'm glad I took the test. Even though I could have died," Akemi said, referring to her huge amount of chakra loss as the two parted. "So, thanks…and thank you for helping me return to the inn."

"No problem," Kakashi replied with a faint smile, clearly missing Akemi's support. "I'll see you around." He then turned and started to hobble away. Akemi sighed and went into the inn.

"Where have you been?" asked a cold voice just when Akemi entered the building. Akemi gasped when she saw Haate leaning on the doorframe.

"I - I've…," Akemi stammered. Haate was the worst person to meet when she looked like this.

"Wasn't that one of the shinobi we met the other day?" Haate continued his questioning. "What were you doing with him? And what have you done to look like that?" Akemi gulped. Haate was excellent at interrogation – and intimidation.

"I want some answers you know," Haate said coolly. Akemi knew she couldn't lie, not right now. She would have to tell the truth.

"Kakashi – the shinobi – tested me today. He tested me to see my ninja level. I'm at Jounin level!" Akemi attempted a weak smile which was soon gone when Haate continued his cold stare. "Do you know what that means?!"

"Yes, that you are growing too attached to the village, and especially its people. You know the rules," Haate strode past Akemi towards the stairs. "I still have to do errands around here, so in the meantime, I forbid you to converse to the locals any more than you have to, have you understood?"

"Haate! That is totally out of order!" Akemi protested. "I'm ready to leave whenever, you know that! I just happened to spend my time a little differently this time!"

"Differently? Like in the Sand?" Haate turned to face Akemi.

"No! It was only a test! He was just being friendly! It's not anything else!" Akemi objected. The mere thought of being in love with Kakashi was outrageous! Sure, he was attractive, but much older than Akemi, and he had practically forced her to do something - but so had Pyte… "No! It's not like that – at all!" Akemi confirmed.

"Good," Haate hissed. "Remember not to get attached…" Haate walked all the way to the stairs now, but midway up the first flight he added, "Get cleaned up and go to bed. I will attend to something tomorrow at noon, so will see you in the morning. Remember to be a good girl."

Haate then left Akemi confused in the inn's reception. Just when Akemi thought she could control her emotions a silent tear rolled down her cheek that made the rest of the tears that had built up follow. Akemi hated fighting with Haate, mostly because she could never win some rights. It also made her so emotional.

"I'm not a girl anymore…," Akemi sobbed silently.


End file.
